The Self

Tomorrow I will be giving a message at a small Christian church of mostly young adults from a Therevada Buddhist background.  Although somewhat nominal in terms of understanding and mostly cultural in terms of practice, its teachings influence their spiritual perspective.  My prayer is that this sermon will help set them free from a key hindrance - feeling like there's always a moral imperative they can't attain.

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Do you ever ask yourself, "Who am I, really?" What is this being called "me"? You want things, you feel things, but where is that coming from? What is this "Self"? It's one of those weird things, the more you try to figure it out, the less you know.

Some people answer the question by saying, YOLO, you only live once, You gotta enjoy life, and they live to serve them selves. Everything they do really just has a goal of satisfying their wants, and desires.

There is actually a religion that teaches this:  The Self is our guide. The right thing to do is whatever you want to do. There is no such thing as right and wrong. The only thing that is wrong is something that you do not feel like doing. You are the Lord of yourself.  Your will, coming up out of yourself, is everything that matters. You take what you want... but you are never deeply satisfied... so you try taking more. 

• This actually is a lie from hell. Even though we feel temporary pleasure, we are destroying our real selves, and other people too.  
• So this idea, live to serve yourself, is Satan talking.  It's a lie and it brings people to hell.

I went the opposite direction with this question about who I was, what to do with my self.
I remember as a young teenager, before I knew Christ, I tried to figure it out. I stared into the mirror, looking deeply into my own eyes, trying to find the answer -  Where was I? What was this "self"? It actually got kind of creepy because I felt like there was nothing to actually point to. The devil whispered in my ear, "that's because you are nothing." I actually felt like I was kind of disappearing. I remember feeling, and living, like I should not ask very much for myself.  I should put my self to the side.

Another religion, Buddhism, traditionally teaches that we need to escape our self-centered, selfish desires. There is a traditional sermon by Buddha called the Fire Sermon. He said, in essence, that everything is burning. Material objects are burning, our senses, our desires, our will. He was saying that everything that can be seen is going to be destroyed one way or another. We die, our bodies are destroyed. Our passions and desires are even the cause for our destruction. So, we should not put our energy or our focus into our desires, what we want, what we can see. We should put our energy and focus on what cannot be seen. If we let everything else burn up, so we no longer are moved by it, that is when we can be set free from the chains of our passions. Does that sound familiar? 

• Our human self is not real, it's just one appearance. Our goal is to be completely set free from Self - to be at one with the universe.  So our self, the essential being who is "me" really does not matter, in fact, we should get rid of that whole idea. 
• Here again, do you notice the devil whispering?  We have to learn to notice what is a lie and what is the truth. But many things are half truth and half lie. There's enough truth there that we get caught in the lie. The devil says to us that we are really not worth much. We might be reincarnated as an animal or insect. 
• We keep feeling our wants and desires, we keep failing to get past them, we keep being essentially self-centered, so we must be bad, so the best we can do is bring offerings to the holy representatives, the monks, in case that will help offset our selfishness.

Both of these ways of thinking are off-base. On the one hand, "serve yourself because you're all that matters." On the other hand, "deny yourself because your desires and your essential human self, do not matter."

I will show you the way of truth.

It is the way of love.

This whole universe was built on love.  Love is the source of the light, the air. Love holds the planets in their orbits. Love makes the stars shine.  Our creator created us in love, because of love, and for love, to be loved, and to find our completion, that is our true selves, in loving others. Love is the power behind everything.  Love is the answer to this question about our self, and so, it turns out is the answer to every question.

Picture a great big swimming pool of love that is the perfect temperature. The weather is perfect and you jump in.  It feels so wonderful to be swimming in love because that is what we were created for. Without this love are like fish out of water. We don't notice or worry about ourselves any more because we are perfectly at ease and taken care of. But we are not selfish, we are joyful, and we want to everyone else to jump in too. 

I only asked you to picture a swimming pool but it's actually a huge ocean that's bigger than the whole earth.

Now I want you to understand that this water of love is the water of your life. Your own personal life. It is your source, in three ways. 

1. It is what gives you life. 
2. It is also what makes you clean. 
3. And it is what nourishes you so much that you become a blessing to others. 

Jesus said, "I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  John 15:5

"I beat my body and bring it into submission... " 1 Cor. 9:27a"I have been crucified with Christ..." Gal. 2:20a

This sounds like Buddhism, at first. It sounds like we are just supposed to deny ourselves. Like we don't matter.
But this is the rest of the story --

"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me."

It's no longer my will and my desires that are ruling me. It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ who is my Lord, and lives in me.  

But what happened to me? If it's no longer me, does that mean I am gone, that I don't matter? Keep listening:

"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me." Gal. 2:20

 When we say "self" we mean two things - 

1. your wants and desires, your selfishness. This is sometimes called "your flesh".  
2. Self also means "the real you" which is your true spiritual being living in a body, the person who God loves.

Listen to this. 

5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to death. 6But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. Romans 7:5-6

It's about you being loved by God, abiding in the vine, in the source of love Himself, it is not about following rules.

Again, being in Christ, plugged into the Vine:

1. is the source of your life, meets my needs, and delights me deep down in my spirit.
2. is what makes you clean (yes you yourself) acceptable to God.
3. is the source of anything good that comes through you.

But we have a problem. How do I know that that love is for me? Yes I can understand that God is loving, but did He really design me and know me and actually die for me? Does he really feel that much emotionally, powerfully committed love for me, personally? "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Where does it say "Jesus loves [name], no matter what, and forever."  That is what we desperately need.  You, and you, and you, and each of us, need to know Jesus loves you personally, unconditionally, and forever. That is how we get set free from needing to be good enough, from feeling like we'll never really make God happy with us.

He already is your vine.  He already is there for you.  The swimming pool is open, and He is saying to you right now personally, jump in. 

You don't need a lifeguard of your conscience or your guilty feelings, telling you to "hold back, that love is too big deep." Why? Because the life is in the water. Do you feel it in your heart? That is how you know. You need a personal relationship with Him. Christianity is the only religion that really says that. You as a person can know God and it's not because you're good enough, it's because He already came down and poured Himself out for you, just as you are.

This is the secret of Christ. While you were yet a sinner, he loved you, and died for you.

If you don't know His love personally, if you haven't started to commune in Him, to just take his living water up into yourself, this is what you do. Start to speak to him and just thank Him for already being there with you. No matter what. Nothing can separate you from His love, not sin, not demons, not even death.  If you have sins you haven't confessed, confess them now, and you will know they are taken away at the cross.

(Pause for time for confession of sins.)

He forgives you. His living water has already been poured out for you. When he died, and later they pierced him with a spear to make sure he was dead, and water poured out, and blood also poured out.

Everyone who agrees please pray this along with me out loud:
"Dear God, thank you for forgiving my sins.
I have been afraid
That my sins have kept me from you.
I have believed a lie
That I had to be good enough.
Buddhism was trying to teach me to be good, 
But what I learned was that I, myself, could never be acceptable.
God I see that you want to know me personally,
Me myself,
Because you didn't stay in heaven,
But came down to earth.
God I hear your voice asking me to jump into the water of your love.
I thank you that you accept me right now.
Just as I am.
I am embarrassed by my sin
But I see that Jesus took it on the cross.
Help me put my roots down into you.
Help me learn to talk to you and trust you completely,
Because you really really really love me.
Help me be joined to you like a branch on the vine.
Let your water of life, of holiness, and of fruitfulness
Flow through me, so it is no longer I who try to live this life,
But Christ living in me."